What Wat is Which?
July 17 – Bangkok tourists
Our wonderful driver arrived at 9:30 to escort us the Grand Palace and the Wats (temples) nearby. Tom and Tyler woke around 8am and walked around the corner form our hotel to find the highly rated coffee hours nearby. Of all the bars they passed on the way, the Hooters was by far the least seedy.
By 9am they were back at hotel, lattes and paninis in hand, and we got dressed for our day of exploration. On the drive, we got our history lesson about the impressive King of Thailand. Unlike China, where there are plenty of images of Mao but a limited sense of true love for the man, the Thais truly loved their king. Nearly 9 months after his passing in 2016, mourners are still lining the streets, dressed in black, waiting their turn to observe his body.
Our first stop was Wat Pho, home of the famous reclining Buddha. The enormous gold gilded stature is 45 meters long and his pillows are 10 meters high. He looked very comfortable. Around the complex are hundreds of Buddha statues as well as an institute dedicated to Thai medicine and Thai massage.
From there we walked past the crowds of mourners to visit the impressive grand palace and Wat Phra Kaew. The Wat was gorgeous and we enjoyed seeing the diminutive Emerald Buddha who is actually made of jade. While packed with tourists, the grounds still managed to give off an aura of peacefulness. Every direction we looked was a photo op more beautiful than the last and we enjoyed the eye candy for over an hour. It was lovely to see our driver equally impressed as he snapped more than a few cell phone pics along the way.
Around noon, it was time to head to our next destination, Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn) across the river from the Grand Palace. Before succumbing to modernization in the 1980s, Bangkok was crisscrossed with rivers and canals and examples of those river ways could still be seen in the long boats ferrying passengers up and down the river. After a low quality mango shake (the islands had spoiled us) we took the 10 cent, two minute ride across the river.
The smaller temple was quiet and quaint but still enjoyable to visit. The kids each attached a wishing bell to the stack of bells and after an hour we took the ferry back across the river. It was nearly 3pm and we were templed out, so walked ack to the car for the hour long drive back to our hotel. The streets were clogged mess, but we enjoyed looking out the windows at the insanity.
Around 4:30 we were back the comforts of our hotel and the kids went up to the 9th floor pool deck to cool down from the heat. The guests at our hotel were we international as the city itself. Perhaps because of its proximity to the Arabic part of Bangkok the majority of the guests were middle eastern and most of the women were dressed head to toe in black burkas.
About 7pm, we left the hotel to experience another part of Bangkok culture – the mega-mall. We walked 1/2 mile from our hotel to Terminal 21, the 7 floor mall styled after a huge airport. Each floor represented a city and we enjoyed riding the escalator from Paris to London to Istanbul and finally to San Francisco, complete with a cable car and the Golden Gate Bridge. At the top floor was an enormous food court with over 40 different food stalls – think classic Thai night market but cleaner. We got $0.75 Pad Thai and $1.00 curry chicken and $0.50 mango sticky rice. For $6 the whole family was fed and happy.
We toured the mall and Tom was impressed to see his friend’s surf watch company kiosk (Nixon) near the departure lounge for Hong Kong. Around 9:30 we made the stroll back to our hotel and along the way Tyler completed his shopping goals by purchasing 4 awesome spinners from a street vendor. He got the spinner the vendor in Koh Samui wouldn’t sell for less than 400 baht for 300 and his joy could hardly be contained.
While it is somewhat bizarre to consider a mall a cultural experience, this somehow qualified. And the contrast between the noise and chaos outside the mall and the serenity inside the mall was fascinating. As we walked back to our hotel, you could feel the city waking up as the bars that were empty when we walked past 3 hours ago, were now well occupied.